22 THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 



7. Until finally he arrived at the dignity of 

 an Indian king.* 



Six centuries after the time of Ovid, 

 the Transmutation theory was firmly held 

 by your British ancestors. TALIESSEN, the 

 most distinguished of the Welsh bards, who 

 became a Christian before he died, repre- 

 sented himself as having been successively 

 " a serpent, a wild ass, a brick and a crane, " 

 until he settled down in life as a quiet 

 country squire, and a very determined op- 

 ponent to the rising claims of the Popes of 

 Eome. 



Similar views of the Transmutation the- 

 ory appear to have prevailed in the Emerald 

 Isle, as it had done in Wales. One of your 

 famous chroniclers, quaint old GIRALDUS 

 CAMBRIENSIS, of the 12th century, represents 

 the aborigines of Ireland as having all been 

 drowned by the Noachian Flood, save one, 

 Titan, who was saved by having been trans- 

 muted into a salmon, from whom all the 

 post-diluvian inhabitants of the island are 

 said to have been descended. Hence a native 



* Manual of Buddhism, p. 100. 



